Here’s an excellent story about Chris Carr who played in the NFL for 10 years and is now about to graduate from law school. That’s unusual but not so unusual, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White also played in the NFL. What makes this story special is that Carr will specialize in immigration law. Why?
Carr grew interested in immigration law a few years ago, after reading Thomas Sowell’s “Ethnic America.” (“A really cool book,” he said.) That made him reflect on the country and “just how unique the American experiment was.” He read blog posts by Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, and the writing of Michael Huemer, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado.
Hat tip: Fabio Rojas.
I was hoping that the subtext was going to be alt-Right. It would have been interesting to see a minority who is not automatically part of the Ctl-Left. I still have great hopes for Dave Chappelle.
Still, I am guessing the barely hidden subtext is the NFL’s PR people trying to persuade mothers that their boys can play football without being turned into vegetables. It is very successful to that end.
It is just a pity that the man they chose to illustrate this story seems to want to be a low-life. Let’s hope he goes into corporate law.
Justice White–not exactly a learned man.
Justice White’s dissent in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth (July 1, 1976)
Missouri is entitled to protect the minor unmarried woman from making the decision in a way which is not in her own best interests, and it seeks to achieve this goal by requiring parental consultation and consent. This is the traditional way by which States have sought to protect children from their own immature and improvident decisions, [n2] and there is absolutely no reason expressed by the majority why the State may not utilize that method here.
The concept of the age of majority has a rich and full history based on common law and science. If a minor can seek an abortion without parental consent, then why not marriage to a pedophile, a leg amputation on a functional leg, or armed service sweeping mines? If you can provide a cogent argument as to why these three possibilities should be permitted, or why abortion should be permitted but not these three examples, please do so.
Because someone in their right mind might perceive abortion as being in their best interest. (That wasn’t so hard.)
It sounds like he would do excellent immigration enforcement work at DOJ. The agency has a hiring program expressly for new law school graduates.
Sowell’s point in his book is that, contrary to myth, America is not a “melting pot”. I’m not sure how that fits the story of a former (black) football player who was born in Nevada and is pursuing a career as an immigration lawyer. That Carr was influenced by Sowell may be the point. I get in trouble when I write comments about Mr. Sowell. I am sympathetic to his argument that civil rights legislation, though well-intended, destroyed the “black community” and the businesses that thrived there (although in Sowell’s telling, the legislation may not have been well-intended). I might point out that the NFL is a pretty big business and that most of the players are black, something that would not have happened absent the civil rights legislation. One might imagine successful former NFL football players creating a new “black community”, leveraging their position of fame and fortune to advance the cause of black Americans, promoting black enterprise through both leadership and with finance, beginning with black ownership of NFL teams. Sowell says America is not a melting pot, success and failure attributable to the cultural differences of the immigrants who come to America, including black Americans who came here against their will. It seems that Tabarrok has joined Cowen on the theme of unification and division.
Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. The Washington Redskins were the last NFL team to integrate in 1962.
Great book. Could not be written today, I don’t think.
Thank goodness. The acute shortage of lawyers and the dearth of open border cranks was worrisome.
Ha! My thoughts precisely.
So Carr is a Caplan acolyte? Well he is going to GWU so he has an excuse. But how does the GMU econ faculty get away with pretending they have never heard of the tragedy of the commons? The moral smugness of the slash and burn concept at the heart of their notion of open borders immigration is sadly the least distasteful aspect of it. Their message is go and kill off or drive away everyone who does not pray the way you do and turn your country into a toilet, we want to offer you the greener pastures in the USA to continue on with your customs. Want to run up ruinous national debt? No worries! You are welcome to walk away and start all over again in the US!
Compared to the Trumpian alternative of slamming the door shut on Christians and other minorities trapped in Muslim-majority nations who are killing them, it’s certainly obvious that the immigration restrictionists are far, far more distasteful.
The alt-Right message is “go and kill off or drive away everyone who does not pray the way you do” and we won’t stop you from doing it, won’t send any aid to your victims, and won’t let any of your intended victims try to escape. Unsurprising, of course, considering that Trump and his fans are no friends or admirers of Western civilization, but rather admire the savage barbarians, despots, and tyrants of all sorts (such as his praise for the PRC crackdown in Tiananmen Square), and wish to replicate those sorts of societies here. Western civilization is a fantastic tradition that all of us, regardless of background, should admire and can part of, and ought to be defended from those savages like Trump and his fans.
Sorry pal. Trump and the deplorables are a thousand times more tolerant and pluralist than you and your ilk
So sad to hear about the early brain dementia.
If we would just unleash the FDA and allow chinese herbal medicines at lot of the problems would be over.
Alan Page was an outstanding defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings in the 1970s and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He later undertook a legal career and served for twenty-two years as an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.